I appreciate the comments. Like Leighton I tend to shoot wide open or close to wide open, so I probably wouldn't be complaining too loudly about dust bunnies. It is nice to hear that problems don't become evident on every camera. I may also get relief by virtue of the fact I tend to buy used cameras rather than new ones. Hopefully, when I arrive at the decision point and locate a clean D600 at a fair price, the growing pains will be passed. And yes, as Chris noted, I shoot exclusively with manual focus Nikon glass so AF-ON is superfluous to me...

I upgraded from a D700 and IMO it's well worth the upgrade (for my needs). The size is perfect especially with the grip. Please note that I still regard the D700 as one of the best DSLR's in the market...

As for the dust/oil issue, yes it's there for me but I am hoping it will go away in time. If you shoot at large apertures then it probably won't bother you and maybe new bodies (as some indicated) won't have the issue.

hijazist wrote:
I upgraded from a D700 and IMO it's well worth the upgrade (for my needs). The size is perfect especially with the grip. Please note that I still regard the D700 as one of the best DSLR's in the market...

As for the dust/oil issue, yes it's there for me but I am hoping it will go away in time. If you shoot at large apertures then it probably won't bother you and maybe new bodies (as some indicated) won't have the issue.

How would you rate skintones with the D600vsD700?? I currently have a D7000 and this is one of my biggest complaints with it. I am looking at the d600/d700/d800 as a upgrade. I would probably buy a D600 right now if it wasn't for the dust issue. What makes you think new bodies won't have the problem?

How would you rate skintones with the D600vsD700?? I currently have a D7000 and this is one of my biggest complaints with it. I am looking at the d600/d700/d800 as a upgrade. I would probably buy a D600 right now if it wasn't for the dust issue. What makes you think new bodies won't have the problem?

Sorry but I am honestly not qualified to answer your question since I am more into landscape and night photography and don't do much portrait photography so my background in critiquing skin tones is not adequate. I can tell you though that IQ, DR and ISO performance are better than the D700, how much I will leave that to numerical tests, but there is noticeable difference.

As for the dust issue, I am hearing more about people not having the dust issue of their new bodies and many are noticing that the issue disappears after a while. If you are worried about the issue then my advice is to wait a bit until the issue is resolved just like other issues in other bodies have been resolved in new batches. But aside from that it's a phenomenal camera for the price

The skin tones are nice. Not completely perfect like a Hassy, but pretty good. It takes some tweaking to get them perfect unless you are using a good color workflow and using a white-balance card. It can cause some blush in the faces, but it's easy to work with the files. Just gotta watch those reds. I found it takes saturated reds and oranges (think tomatoes and oranges) to the point of almost clipping even in RAW. I have to turn them down about 5 points in lightroom to keep tonality.